Old Christmas Recalled - online book

Washington Irving's description of Old Christmas, Illustrated

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	112                              CHRISTMAS DAY
	to the music; while one, whimsically crowned with a fox's skin, the tail of which flaunted down his back, kept capering round the skirts of the dance, and rattling a Christmas-box with many antic gesticulations. The- Squire eyed this fanciful exhibition with great interest and delight, and gave me a full account of its origin, which he traced to the times when the Romans held possession of the island ; plainly proving that this was a lineal descend­ant of the sword-dance of the ancients. "It was now," he said, " nearly extinct, but he had